66 comments

Turnbull and the Libs campaigned heavily against the NBN, saying it wasn't necessary, it was a waste of money and that it should be left up to the private sector (despite this sector having no capacity or interest to invest in it). Only after seeing its widespread public support and fearful of looking too backward, coupled with the NBN being too far advanced to stop did they cave into supporting a cheap and nasty version.

Why should we believe the coalition has any interest in providing a decent internet service for future generations given their clear public opposition to it through most of NBNs early stages?

Commenter

Simon

Date and time

August 19, 2013, 12:47PM

Looks like the Coalition plan is to prevent small businesses from competing with the big end of town, isn't it? Why limiting so much disregard for the speed targeted by the NBN

Commenter

Al

Location

nsw

Date and time

August 19, 2013, 1:10PM

We shouldn't! I hung in this hangout for as much as I can stand. The one thing clear to me is that today Mr Turn-bull does not know very much at all about his 'pet' subject. The other thing that is clear is that the details of integration with Telstra's 'last 400m' of copper network has not been thought through or costed with sufficient integrity.

Commenter

OpenWindow

Date and time

August 19, 2013, 1:34PM

I understand the cost of maintaining the old copper, a billion a year or so, would quickly pay for the difference between fibre to the node and fibre to the user.

Commenter

Ian

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

August 19, 2013, 2:19PM

Ian, OMG . That figure is guesswork man. The fibre to node will be the biggest waste of money ever seen in Australia's history. Absolute waste of time and money. It's keep it copper or the full NBN solution.

Commenter

Andy

Date and time

August 19, 2013, 2:36PM

You all need to understand one thing turnbulls plan for an NBN is to run this network past every house/business at foot path serviceability instead of into the homes/ businesses as of Rudd's plan At which point footpath serviceability is where Murdoch steps in and provides you whith the better quality upgrade package at a premium price to get to where Rudd' s would get you.

Commenter

Mark R

Date and time

August 19, 2013, 3:11PM

Ex-Head of British Telecom, Peter Cochrane says that Fibre to the Node is a huge mistake. He spoke to the UK parliament about this. Turnbull is mistaken if he has been so misinformed.

He said "Fibre to the cabinet is one of the biggest mistakes humanity has made,” he said. “It ties a knot in the cable in terms of bandwidth and imposes huge unreliability risks"

He says that there are many countries planning 10Gbps, something Fibre to the Node using copper for the end points cannot possibly do.

“They are rolling out 1Gbps, but they are planning for the next phase of 10Gbps. To return to an earlier point, if you have got fibre to the cabinet and you are relying on copper, I can tell you that the network is going to collapse on copper when you get to 1Gbps. It will collapse much earlier. You may do 200 to 300Mbps over a short distance, but you are not going to do anything with a reasonable reach over 1Gbps, and you are certainly not going anywhere at 10 Gbps. So you have immediately got this knot in the bandwidth.”

That is exactly right. If Turnbull had any economic sense (and some testinal fortitude) he would scrap the NBN and leave it as copper or go the full NBN.

Commenter

Andy

Date and time

August 19, 2013, 1:02PM

Tone, when quoting that article you're implying FTTN in Australia relies only on copper from node to premises.

It doesn't.

Commenter

lol

Location

brisbane

Date and time

August 19, 2013, 2:31PM

@Andy, you need to be providing a lot more than just echoing slogans. You're starting to sound positively shilly.

@lol, so what exactly, in the Vast Majority of cases, exists currently between the node (local exchange) and the house if not copper? Surely you don't mean the specks of new estates being filled with Telstra fibre?